


and in freedom, we find

by codedredalert



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alcohol, Bad Jokes, Enemy Lovers, M/M, petty antagonism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21811024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codedredalert/pseuds/codedredalert
Summary: There was a hand gripping his arm, over his sleeve. Drake stared at it, stared at the tattoos across the fingers, black ink on dark skin in a dimly lit bar. He blinked and the letters came into focus, D E A T— the thumb wrapped under, he couldn't see the last letter.He blinked again, followed the curve of the long fingers up to a faded yellow sleeve, and further up to a familiar face, with an almost friendly smile."That stuff will take your eyes out, if you keep drinking it," said Trafalgar Law, Surgeon of Death.(A month after Drake leaves the marines, Trafalgar Law comes asking questions.)
Relationships: Trafalgar D. Water Law/X Drake
Comments: 20
Kudos: 77





	and in freedom, we find

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marimoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marimoes/gifts), [rocketspurs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketspurs/gifts).



> Thanks mo and katie for your contributions to the lawkins cause, don't die in rarepair hell. 
> 
> Thank you [narramin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narramin) for being the most hilarious beta ever.

The booze Drake first learned to drink as a marine was cheap as dirt and startlingly similar to lighter fluid. Yet, somehow, the kinds of places that were willing to serve wanted men had even shittier booze, for ten times the price. That _had_ to be a crime of some sort. 

It did the job though. The world was muted, and there was a slight ringing in his ears, along with heat radiating from his face. Everything was pleasantly numb. The drink took away the pressure of his huge undertaking and the isolation from his brother marines. It had been a full month since his staged dishonourable discharge and effective exile, he was allowed to be a little homesick. He was… 

A touch called his attention. 

There was a hand gripping his arm, over his sleeve. Drake stared at it, stared at the tattoos across the fingers, black ink on dark skin in a dimly lit bar. He blinked and the letters came into focus, D E A T— the thumb wrapped under, he couldn't see the last letter. 

He blinked again, followed the curve of the long fingers up to a faded yellow sleeve, and further up to a familiar face, with an almost friendly smile. 

"That stuff will take your eyes out, if you keep drinking it," said Trafalgar Law, Surgeon of Death. 

Drake jerked away, too slow. He reached up for his axe handle, feeling like he was moving through water. Trafalgar moved faster, and there was a flicker of blue before the strap of his axe holster split, cut with clean precision and it fell to the ground with a loud thud. Drake cursed and tried to dive for it, but Trafalgar was in the way, and there was only yellow, yellow and a grinning jolly roger swallowing up his entire field of vision. 

Those hands appeared again, uncomfortably close to Drake's face. There was the tell-tale sound of a shotgun being cocked somewhere behind him. Even comfortably drunk, Drake could tell this was Not Good. 

Drake froze. 

"The owner is about to shoot us, commodore-ya," warned Trafalgar. "Turn slowly."

Drake looked straight into the double barrel of a sawed off shotgun. He looked past it to the decidedly grizzled old lady who ran the bar. She was built like a bear. 

"If ya gonna fight, pay up, an' get out," she ordered with the dead monotone of an employee who has been with an establishment for too long and was not paid enough for this bullshit. 

"We’re just talking," Trafalgar assured her, and his hand was on Drake’s shoulder again. 

_Bullshit_ , thought Drake. He’d cleave Trafalgar in two if he only had his damn axe. Between the shotgun and Trafalgar Law, Drake knew who he'd rather keep his eyes on. 

He turned back to look at Trafalgar, whose nasty little smile hadn't budged an inch. 

"I don't dislike a turncoat, commodore-ya," said Trafalgar, voice smooth and slow and disturbingly comforting. "I'd buy you a drink but the methanol in what they sell here could quite literally blind you."

"Why are you _here_?" Drake heard himself say before his brain had quite finished processing the words and the oddly _nice_ tone behind them. "Why _me_?"

Trafalgar laughed, face turned up slightly. The light hit his face where it wasn't obscured by his hat. In that split second, he looked like a decent person, and Drake could almost forget this was the face of a murderer.

" _Why me_ ," Trafalgar repeated, something heavy and suddenly tired in his tone despite the upward corners of his mouth. "Good one. Let me know if you ever get the answer to that." 

There was a long pause. Trafalgar realised he still had his hand on Drake's shoulder and removed it. Drake sat back heavily on the bar stool. 

"What d'you _want_ ," complained Drake. "'M not chasing you anymore, and you come find _me_? Stupid crazy pirate." 

Trafalgar took the seat beside Drake without being invited to sit, and he focused on Drake, as if trying to see into him and take him apart. 

"You loved the marines. Like family, you said. They raised you. So I came to find out— what was your offence, that they'd burn you like this? What was _their_ offence, that a loyal fool like you would do anything that would scare them into this? I thought—" Trafalgar broke his sentence for a small, dark laugh, an aside to himself. "I thought maybe there's hope for the clever commodore-ya after all." 

There was a hint of sympathy there, though Drake had the unmistakable impression that Trafalgar was laughing at least a little bit at his expense. Still, the little spiel gave Drake pause. 

"You sound like—" Drake frowned and stopped as the thought slipped away from him. Trafalgar leaned forward, interested. 

"I sound like?" he prompted, head tilted slightly. 

"...you care." 

It wasn't the most eloquent or delicate way to put it. And there was no immediate reply from Trafalgar. 

Drake blinked away the alcoholic haze and leaned down slightly to see under the brim of the hat. Trafalgar's mirth had dropped completely. His expression was altogether more restrained, and full of hate. Hate wasn't a wild thing, it focused like a blade, and it sharpened every bone in Trafalgar's body. What was it that Trafalgar hated so much anyway? And did he know it made him even more desirable? Oceans blue, as if the man wasn't pretty enough just wild and angry and mad, he had to have a civilised side too. 

"Thanks." That was definitely amusement returning to Trafalgar's voice. The nasty little smile was back. 

Oh, shit. He'd said that out loud? 

"More mumbled than said, but yes." 

"Fuck you, Trafalgar," Drake hissed. He glanced at the bar but the bartender had already cleared his almost-full glass. 

"If you're offering…"

Drake paused, the unexpected response startling him. Almost involuntarily, he _looked_ at the man right in front of him. The heavy material of Trafalgar's hoodie folded in against his body where he held his longsword in the crook of his arm, suggesting a thin waist. Signature fitted jeans advertised long legs, spread where he straddled the bar stool. Small wrists, Drake could fit both in one hand and pin them above Trafalgar's head easily. He made very sure not to say that aloud but he could feel heat rush to his face and… elsewhere. 

"Well. One head of yours seems to have voted yes."

Drake swore and looked down in alarm and back up to Trafalgar. The asshole was grinning openly now, smug. 

"I don't have to stand for this," Drake declared, standing. The floor heaved under him and he found himself clinging to the bar counter. There was a hand on his arm, holding him up. Despite its thin elegance, there was strength in the grip. 

"Commodore-ya, it looks like you can't stand at all," gloated Trafalgar. 

Drake glared at him. 

"I. Can." He wrenched his arm out of Trafalgar's grip. The floor pitched again like a ship in a storm and he found himself chest to chest with Trafalgar, clinging to the smaller man to keep upright. 

"Do you want my help?" asked Trafalgar. From this close, his eyes were true gold instead of the strange grey-hazel of his file photo or the dead slate-white of his wanted poster. 

"No!" 

Trafalgar shrugged. Drake could feel the movement of it where their bodies pressed against each other, but any effort to push Trafalgar away was like trying to fight gravity. 

"I could sober you up," Trafalgar offered again, lowly. "With… you know." 

The fucking _Ope-Ope_. Yeah, Drake _knew_. 

" _No_ ," he growled, and tried to push away again. Failed. 

"Do you want to get shivved right out the door?" argued Trafalgar. He was doing that thing again in his voice, that small tweak in his tone where it almost sounded like he cared. Tricky bastard. "Be sensible, commodore-ya. Better the enemy you know." 

… he's dangerous. Even if he played nice now, that hasn't stopped being true. A blight upon the North Blue and the Surgeon of Death, a madman who grinned in a suspended whirlwind of dismembered soldiers. 

"I… No.” 

"Fine," sighed Trafalgar. "I'll just get you somewhere safer. You can thank me once you're sober."

He leaned Drake against the counter and retrieved the fallen axe. He put the strap over Drake's chest again, and another pale blue flash joined the seams of the strap back as if they'd never been cut. 

"I should truss you up and leave you out there for them," muttered Drake as Trafalgar pulled Drake's weight away from the counter. The axe made his balance better, and the weight of it was comforting on his back. 

"You like your old friends in the marines that much?" asked Trafalgar as they walked out of the bar. The midnight chill hit Drake like a bucket of ice, sobering as it stripped the heat from his face. 

_What's it to you_ , Drake wanted to ask, but the cold wind snatched his words away. 

"You sure are a good dog, aren't you," Trafalgar continued. "Abandoned on the street in winter but still whimpering for your master. Stupid marines. You all never _think_." 

Trafalgar nudged them into an alleyway, out of the wind. Drake stumbled over something in the shadows, and Trafalgar pivoted them so they wouldn't fall. Drake's axe clanged against the brick wall. 

A thin hand settled against the bare skin of Drake's chest where the cut of his shirt opened. Trafalgar's fingers were cold against Drake's burning skin, even colder than the wind somehow. So cold they burned right through to Drake's lungs and left him breathless. 

"Don't like the cold, commodore-ya?" teased Trafalgar. His icy cold touch dragged even further down Drake's chest, and Drake's lungs squeezed out the last bit of air he didn't even know he still had. 

Trafalgar took Drake's hand and placed it on his waist. The hoodie fabric gave in further than expected. Damn, his waist _was_ small, just as Drake had guessed. He really should remove his hand, but he doesn’t. 

"Why are you doing this?" he murmured. His other hand reached for Trafalgar of its own volition, gloved fingers curling into the hood. The weight of it pulled at the fabric and exposed a little more of Trafalgar’s neck. He drew Trafalgar flush against him. 

"No reason." Trafalgar paused, tilting his head as he re-thought his answer. He shrugged and pressed forward. The hand on his waist slipped down to his hip. "Though you should know, it's one of the benefits of leaving."

"What benefits?" The obvious one when he had his hand on someone's ass echoed in his head. "Sex?" 

"Freedom," breathed Trafalgar. His breath formed a pale mist, and he said the word with almost-reverence. For a long moment, his expression was the gentlest Drake had ever seen it, then it sharpened back to smug. "But that too. If you want."

"Freedom?" asked Drake incredulously. What freedom could there be for a wanted man, unable to go anywhere without the ever-present threat of pursuit and arrest? What freedom could there be with murders on your conscience? What freedom could Trafalgar Law possibly have to preach to him? 

Trafalgar just laughed, a bit too much teeth and white in his eyes. 

"Yeah. Welcome to freedom," he said, and his cold hands pulled Drake’s face in for a kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> Before anyone else makes the commodore 64 joke I know Drake's a rear admiral when he leaves the marines. 
> 
> I could give you a long explanation and implied backstory about elaborate layers of insult and acknowledgement in Law insisting on using Drake's marine title despite him leaving, refusing to acknowledge his promotion, Drake maybe not feeling like he deserves his new title, the title possibly being to assist the shock factor of him leaving etc etc… 
> 
> But let's be real, I just think commodore-ya sounds cute.


End file.
